Buddy Don't Go (single)

Overview
Buddy Don't Go is the third single from Ivan Knight and the Imaginary Friends (album). Released just two days before the album, the song is a mix of many different influences including Queen, Pet Shop Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys and Daft Punk. Ivan sites it as one of his personal favourites even though he admits to it's cheesy nature. A music video was released with it, which also captured the cheesiness of the song.

Production
The song went through a number of development stages before turning out the way it did. In the summer of 2019, Ivan came up with an instrumental inspired by a Queen demo "Feel Like" which would go on to become the smash hit "Under Pressure". He liked how similar it was but also how different it was at the same time, and wanted to make a song that took the unused aspects of Feel Like and turned it into a defined song. At the time, Ivan felt that there weren't enough songs with rapping on it, which is why there is a rap verse in the middle of the track.

On October 2019, Ivan visited Rockfield Studios, where Queen had recorded "A Night at the Opera". There, he recorded samples of the piano that Freddie Mercury used to practise on. He then chopped up the samples and put them in the track. Ivan felt this was the glam rock push the song was needing.

A year later, when Ivan was finishing the album, he was recording guitars for Shut Down and decided he was going to add guitars to Buddy Don't Go as well. With guitars, bass, piano and drums on the album, he felt he had created his perfect glam rock tune and was ready to release it to the world.

Reception
While not as popular as Ivan had hoped it would be, with the music video being his worst performing so far, the track did receive a positive critical reception. BradTasteInMusic rated it a 7/10 in his review and members of Flex Entertainment enjoyed it as well. Despite not being the most successful song from the album, Ivan is proud that people enjoyed it none the less.